 So today's topic, inshallah, is going to be very, very relevant to every aspect of our life. We're going to be talking about one of the main enemies of the human being on the spiritual path, which is the nafs. And really the entire, most of the conversation, most of the literature, when it's talking about how to improve your state of iman, how to improve your taqwa, how to improve your presence with Allah, it gets back to talking about the nafs. The nafs can be translated as the ego or the lower self. At its higher stages it can be translated as the soul. There's different ways to think about it. But let's begin with just a little bit of a recap and what we'll be talking about then we'll get into today. So we've been talking about the main obstacles that the human being faces on the path to Allah. Specifically when someone has the intention, when Allah gives somebody the intention in their heart to begin to traverse the path of nearness to Him. And they want to go from the path of just doing the basics to now trying to really aspire to get closer and closer to Allah. Allah pulls that person near. It's as though it's kind of like a magnetic pull and a desire that Allah gives that person. And then the first hurdle that we covered, we're covering this text of Imam al-Azali. The first hurdle is an hurdle of knowledge, which is that someone needs to have the requisition to do their worship properly. Knowledge ultimately will help someone discern between right and wrong outwardly and right and wrong inwardly. And that's what this science that we're talking about right now, the science of spirituality, is all about. Then someone gets to the path of repentance, which is that we think about everything we've done wrong and we sincerely turn to Allah. That's the second big hurdle. And we've been covering now is this third hurdle which lays out essentially the enemies of the human being. The first enemy being the dunya, the world, the lures and the learnments of the world. The second being the people who distract from Allah, essentially that company. The third being shaitan, which we finished covering off last week. And now we're going to get into the fourth, which arguably is the most insignificant enemy that the human being has, which is the Nus. And this will go on now for probably the next two or three sessions because it's a pretty lengthy section. So first is let's just define what exactly the Nus is. The Nus, when it comes to this spiritual inner world of the human being, the Nus is not a separate entity from us. It is us, but it's our lower nature. You have different parts of you when it comes to spiritual. When you think about your inner world, you have your heart, your kalb, which Allah refers to often in the Quran. Is there a kalb line or are there hearts line? The khulu is one of the words in the plural form that's referred to in the Quran. Then you have the ruh, the spirit. The spirit is the part in you that's directly connected to the divine presence. Allah says that khuli ruh, every ruh is from the command of his Lord. And then you have the Nus. So you can think really if you've got a white board redried out, but your heart is kind of the middle. It's at the heart. And then you have above it, essentially you have the spirit. And the spirit is what's facing the spiritual world, the spiritual realm. And anything that you do that attracts light, newer goodness, sweet breezes from the divine mercy, that comes through the spirit. It impacts the heart in a positive light. And your heart becomes monowar, enlightened. And your heart becomes that has a desire to get to know Allah. That's in those moments when someone's spirit, you say, oh, I'm feeling really spiritual. There's a very deep, Islamically, that's a very deep concept. It's not like a pseudo spirituality. When someone's ruh is impacted, their heart begins to transform completely. And the main sign of that, according to the prophets of Allah, is that they start to turn away from the dunya and start to prepare for death. Because the spirit has woken up. Otherwise, most human beings, we are asleep. And as it comes, as Sayyidina Ali, I believe, said that human beings are asleep. And when they wake up, they die. Because when you wake up, your spirit is what begins. The spiritual realm begins to unveil to you. It starts to become clear. The angels become clear. The angels of punishment and the angels of mercy and the shiaqeen and the jinn. All these things we couldn't see before, now they become clear. That's seen through the spirit. That's seen through the ruh, essentially. And Allah knows best, this is obviously the inner realm. And so it's not something that's like, you know, super obvious that this is what the scholars have laid out. Specifically, Imam al-Azad. Then you have the nafs. So if you think about the heart in the middle, then you have the nafs. The nafs is the ego. It's facing downward. The lower self. Anything that you and I do for the sake of the nafs, it stains our heart. It gives a black spot on the heart. As we know in the narration of the prophets of Allah, He mentions that the heart can have spots, dark spots. Dark spots, dark spots, until the heart becomes completely dark. And when the heart becomes dark, then you and I are not going to perceive realities anymore of you. That becomes a state when the heart is covered up. And that's what kufr is. Kufr is when the heart is completely darkened. It's covered up. Kufr means that the kathir is the one who covers up. And the heart is covered up to truth. Or the heart becomes blind or dumb or deaf as Allah says in the Quran to the truth. So this is now what happens to the heart when the nafs is what we obey. So you have the heart in the middle, spirit, and then you have the nafs essentially. Now, this is where the more we incline towards the nafs, within the nafs are your desires. There's something called the hawah, which Allah mentions in the Quran, your desires. The nafs is the focal point of all desires. So all the desires that we have, they go through our nafs. They are commanded essentially by our nafs. And any time a desire is followed, the heart is impacted negatively. Any desire. This gets very subtle, because there's the basic obvious desires which we'll touch on, the desire for food, the desire for sexual relations, and especially when these are in haram, that these are haram, that this is when it impacts the heart negatively. The desire for fame, the desire for followers, the desire for power, the desire for control, all of these are desires. But where it gets subtle is the nafs can use religion to trick you into just following your desires. So someone is just following their desire, but they think they're worshiping Allah. But you won't do so if it's simply a trick of the nafs. And this is why learning this science that we are talking about is so important. It's why Marwa Wazali devoted such a strong portion of his life to codifying this and to teaching it, and really in a very, very structured way. So that's the way that the kind of inner world essentially in nutshell, according to the scholars of the science, that's the way that it works. Now, there's one more element to this. The sheytan, the sheytan that you've been assigned, and then there's an angel that human being has been assigned, that they are essentially sitting there at the heart whispering. They're whispering. They don't know your thoughts. They're whispering thoughts to you, the waswasa of sheytan, and the ilham, the spiritual inspiration of the angels. And there are another force in all of this that they can influence you to learn a good direction or to go into bad direction, just depending on which one we follow. But the nafs is always with us, and it knows us because it's part of us. So all of what we just mentioned, it's all part of you, right? It's like you wouldn't say your eyes and your nose and your ears and your mouth are separate from you. No, they are you, but they also are in their own way, they're characterized as those limbs, right? And as those parts of us. So that's important to understand that the nafs is us, the heart is us, but it has its own kind of weaknesses and strengths and ways to cure it, okay? So now, I just want to actually pause there. Does anybody have any questions before we move on to the next part? That's just like a very high-level overview of how this is structured. And if it's not clear, then I'll try to draw it afterwards on paper or something and it'll become clearer. So now, let's define what the nafs actually is. Now we've defined how it works inside of us, what it is. The nafs is essentially the lower self, the ego, and it's an enemy from within the human being. At the lower stages, it's an enemy from within the human being. Shaytan, who is also part of this entire inner world, works with the enemy to try and get you to slip up. This is why in Ramadan, even when Shaytan is locked up, we still make mistakes, we still slip up because the nafs is the weak part in us that is trying to weaken, the ego commanding part in us is trying to make us slip up, okay? Now, the reason why the nafs is such a dangerous enemy is because it's operating from within you. That's what Imam Uddadi said, it's operating from within you. It knows you, it's like a spy that knows all the weaknesses that you have. It very deeply knows you. The nafs is aware, right? You and again, we are, the nafs is part of us. So it knows, okay, these are the strengths, these are the weaknesses, this is the desire of this person, this is the desire of that person, because the nafs is the place where those desires live. And so the strategies then that are deployed by the nafs to try and get you to slip up, they're very, very detailed. They're not quick, quick, like just get it over with, they're very detailed plots, right? The nafs really tries to just try to get us to slip up over time, try to get us caught up in one desire and another desire and then team up with the Shaitan to eventually try and get us to slip. So the first thing is to know that it's an enemy from within. The second is that it's actually someone, a beloved enemy, he says, and we are less likely to assume things from our own nafs. How do we know this? It's because nobody likes to see the faults in themselves. Nobody. We will find 15,000 faults in other people. They're doing this wrong, and this wrong, and this wrong, with the minute we're called out for something like me, I didn't do anything, no, wait, no, no, no, you do, you understood that wrong, my men, and like this, this, and that, which is we will never want to admit to our own faults. This is the default state of the human being, the default state of the nafs, and it's actually one way for you to measure where you and I are at spiritually. When someone gives us feedback, especially religious feedback, how do we take it? And assuming it's done with some level of, you know, decent manners, even if it's not, still haven't taken it. If we completely explode on them, and we lose our cool, what do you mean? Don't you know I do? What are you talking to me? I didn't do that. And we're just completely, that means our nafs is like, we've not even done any training. We can't even call ourselves kindergarteners when it comes to the spiritual path. We've done nothing because we can't even handle a basic response, right? That's not the Quranic way. This is not the prophetic way. And this is why someone can worship Allah their entire life, their entire life, like 30, 40, 50, 60 years, and they can still not have properly purified their nafs because they never studied this. This is why knowledge is so important. Because you'll never be aware of these things. You'll never be aware of these things again. Without naming names, I was literally just in Mashid the other day. Somebody that just completely loses their cool on another brother for like an issue over shoes or parking over something very basic. And this is one person who's been raised at Mashid like five times a day and is responsible and has a position and all these things completely gets angry and just almost wants to kick that brother out. It's shocking when you think about what is the benefit of our prayers if we can't even control our tongue at a fellow Muslim for doing something simple. It's not like someone is trying to hurt us because they put their shoes in the wrong place or if we yell, God forbid, at children who are running around and for people who raise their voice at children don't you be quiet, don't you have so much shit? That's not the way, that's not the prophetic way. There's a gentle way of doing these things. That means the nafs has not been, for the most part there are exceptions and nafs has not been refined and not been purified. So it's within us, we don't like to see fault that's why it's such a difficult thing that's why he's going to get into so much depth in covering this. And it also doesn't like to be reminded so when you and I are talking about this and we think about the faults we have to be ready to think of ourselves as foremost with the fault, not anybody else. We really have to think, okay, do I have this fault? Do I do this? Do I do that? And that's the way to begin to start to call the nafs out a little bit because the first reaction we have, for example, as we talk about, we're going to talk about the desire for, let's say, you know, fame or power or something and we think, oh yeah, I know someone which is like they're just always thinking about that. It's like, no, no, no, no, what's that desire in us? Where's that desire in us? We have to think about ourselves because the nafs, it doesn't like the minute you and I begin to appreciate learning our faults, that's the minute this real spiritual transformation begins. That if Allah wants good for someone that comes in a narration that he shows them their faults in this life. You want Allah to show you your faults in this life. To you, not to other people. You want Allah to fail you from other people, but to you, you want to know your faults so that you can work on them. Otherwise, you and I will never know. Where are we weak? What are the blind spots? And that's what ideally when we talk about brothers on the path or sisters on the path, the idea of companions, they used to help each other in attaining taqwa. And Allah commands us in the Qur'an to assist each other in attaining taqwa. They used to help each other. And they would not be shy. You would have various narrations where they're asking each other about their own faults. What do you know about me? How I'm asking that one of the Sahaba, is he a hypocrite? Am I a hypocrite? Am I a hypocrite? What do you know about me that would tell you that hypocrite? And really sincerely asking about their faults. This is the way of the Muslim. This is the way of the moment that we see ourselves as having a lot of work to do. And this is when we begin to transform from looking down on others to now looking up at the potential of other people and looking up at the mercy of Allah. Because the person who's looking down in reality never be able to really see that all the wonders that Allah has given and certainly won't be able to attain a state of the divine knowledge. Because they're always looking down. While Allah doesn't have a direction, they're certainly not looking towards the heavens. They're looking down. We have to look up towards people and their potential. Look up towards our own selves and our potential through Allah's mercy. And then now we begin to change. This is why again, the heart is the goal. Purifying the N us, purifying the heart. This is the goal of the Muslim. Once we've gotten the basics of the Deen down, it's not a good idea to spend time learning intricate rules of the religion that you will never apply to someone's life or debating with people of facts and figures, etc. about Islam and about history and so on and so forth. And yet we don't even know these things. It's not a good use of time because it actually just it just fuels one desire of the N us which is the desire to be right. It's a very, very strong desire and specific temperaments and personalities that we have this desire to want to be right in argument and to debate and so on. So anyways, that's a side note. But there's the two reasons that the N us is difficult to see. It's from within you and within us and it's beloved to us. We like it. We like our own selves. And Islam is not a religion that says don't like your own self, but it says be on the lookout for your faults and then work on it until eventually you learn too that the purification process begins. The purification process begins. And we know this, I think we mentioned this last time that Iblees Shaitan who becomes the accursed devil he did have devils that led him astray his nafs led him astray. He had nafs though, he had ego and he worshipped according to one narration 80,000 years on earth before he was brought up to the heavenly assembly and that's where he slipped. And it wasn't a devil that led him astray but he couldn't blame it. He wouldn't take the blame himself. He at that point wasn't functioning in the role of the devil, right? But he was led astray by what? By his nafs. This is again why nafs are so dangerous than nafs are so dangerous. So all corruption, immorality and sin and problems that are going on in society ultimately go back to the ego, to the nafs. All of them. We can assess the different issues that are going on in society bucket them and guarantee that they go back to one of the rude desires or appetites that the nafs has. So let's understand a little bit what does our nafs like if we want to kind of understand a bit about ourselves. First and foremost, the nafs likes attention. It likes attention. It likes attention being called to itself. And this is where in any way, shape or form, this is why even religiously, right, you have like that people who use the religion to become celebrities because their nafs is just using the theme to call them to themselves, right? Not to Allah. And which is why anything that calls to the self should not be embraced by the Muslims. Should not be embraced by the Muslims. Even this idea that was invented that the Salafi, if you translate Salafi into Arabic what would it translate as? Who knows? Omar, you know. Nafsi. Nafsi, right? You translate the word Salafi into Arabic. It's Nafsi. It's Nafsi. And Nafsi is not, that's not our goal in life, right? It's not, okay, take a Salafi and come here and there it's fine. But this idea of being obsessed with ourselves, this is a completely foreign concept of the Muslim. Absolutely foreign. So this is the first thing. It's a very, very, very subtle way for the Nafs to promote it. I mean it's not even that subtle at this point because the word is called Nafsi, right? To try and draw attention to ourselves. Oh, look at me. Look at the way I look. Look at all this way of trying to position. And social media exacerbates that. It just makes it worse, right? Now we don't even look a certain way. We don't even look. I remember the first time I was using this TikTok to record like a video. And then I discovered filters. And I went and showed my wife. I was like, wow, look at this. I don't even look tired anymore. I was so exhausted that now and now all the spots are gone. It's like as though I look completely different. This isn't even me. She's like, yeah, it's not you. Don't use that stuff. I'm not used to these filters and all these sorts of things. And it's interesting that now on social media, someone doesn't even look like something but they'll have used filters and all these sorts of techniques to make it as though they look like something. Just to draw attention to the mess and to draw attention to our own self. This extremely goes against the way of the Muslim. The Muslim is a way of modesty. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves, especially our looks. And this applies to brothers and to sisters. That if we look nice, we don't want to show that to other people. This is against the way of the religion completely. It's very strange actually how much in the Muslim community we just embrace this Western concept of drawing attention to our own selves. Whether it's us looking really, really nice and even if it's a brother in a tight t-shirt showing their build and so on, that's not from the sunnah. And the same thing about the sister that's looking really, really nice even if the job is on the head. But it's a very, very attractive photo to then post, to get a bunch of likes and comments and so on. And that's not from our tradition. It's antithetical to the concept of Hayat and modesty. And now see, even just that one concept, we don't like hearing it. No one likes it. Why? Because the Nafs doesn't like it. We just said it. It doesn't like to hear the false. So we're going to hear that. Wait, what? No, no, no, no. Because the Nafs doesn't like it. That's the first thing you know. It's why so many people, they don't like to study this because it's so hard to live with. It's like, really, come on. You're going to be the party pooper. That's the scholars who cover this stuff. It can really feel like, okay, well, I'm not going to do this. Because you're aspiring to higher realities. But there is a hope. And the hope is that once we leave these lowly desires, the deep, real desires you were created for, they come to light. What are those desires? The desire of knowledge. The desire to know Allah. The desire for the biker. This is all a desire that for the people who have traveled the path, for the people who are seriously traveling the spiritual path, this desire is so powerful. They don't even care about the other desires. They're so immersed in trying to know Allah and worship Allah. And they love it. There's a sweetness of it. There's a sweetness that they taste. It's only something we would know if we were to experience it. But they write about it. And we hope that we can, inshaAllah, one day, then experience it. So that's the first thing is attention. Attention to our own self. Anything which draws attention. Subtle attention or obvious attention, for the most part. Then the Nus has certain desires, which will cover the desires and the advocates shortly. So any desire you have for food, overeating, going to buffets, constantly thinking about food, all these desires, those come from the Nus. The sexual appetite, constantly looking at the opposite gender. That starting up conversations, which are flirtatious in nature, which could then lead to a bad outcome. All of these come from desires. From the Nus. Nus also, the third thing to know is it likes wasting time and being lazy. It loves it. Waste time. Don't do anything. We're all victim to this right now. We will be, we'll go on our phone and then it's like 25 minutes past 5, 30 minutes and we're like, wait, what just happened? And maybe we read like a bunch of different news sites and we don't even realize that we checked social media and then we read the news and then this and then this and then the email and the text and we do like seven different times the same apps just in a row. And we just keep doing it until we were like, well, there's no more notifications checked. Wasting time. This is from the Nus. The anxiety we limit. It feeds the Nus. And now it's our responsibility to feed the spirit. And if, if, if you and I strive to feed the spirit, then inshallah, Allah will give us the ability to overcome the Nus. This is why it's called the Jee, a Jihad, a spiritual exertion and battle with ourself because there is in Mujahada a struggle involved. That's what, that's what Jihad is. It's a struggle. It's a spiritual struggle. A spiritual struggle. If we can't do this spiritual struggle, all the other spiritual struggles that people out there want to do and claim to do, they're not even going to be possible because we can't even take care of our own self. We can't even take care of our own Nus. And this is why at the end of the day, no real change comes in a society in Muslim society until we change our own selves. Until we change our own selves. It's just not possible. And it's way harder. You'll have a protest going on 10,000 people show up to a protest. At the Masjid in the line for Fajr, five people in the same country where there's a protest going on after protesting the government, 9,500 of those people may not even be praying five times a day or praying Salat al-Fajr. They can't get over the laziness or the desire to sleep but yet they want to have a protest to conquer or to expect the government to be overthrown. This is the state, the complete inverted state of the human being. First, overthrow the laziness of the Nus and then you and I will actually be able to effectuate change and actually be able to impact change. And this is a very, very important reality that's been forgotten for the Muslims. And anyways, I could go on a lot of cangings about all those things but we'll keep focusing on this. So the next thing Nus likes, it loves sleeping and that's linked to laziness. It really likes sleeping. Which is why that the Hajjud prayer, so Fajr, as though Fajr is not early enough, the Hajjud prayer, which is before Fajr in the last one-third of the night, an hour, two, three hours before Fajr anytime, the root of the Hajjud shares the same root as Majahada and Jihad, a spiritual struggle. It's a struggle. You have to break the struggle of trying to want to sleep. It's the best sleep of the night and break that struggle to try and wake up and to pray. And that's why it has such a, one of the many wisdoms in Al-Lano is that's why it has such a profound impact on the heart and on changing the heart of the human being because it is a time when the Nus hates to be awake. Hates it, doesn't want to do it. And someone who can establish his practice regularly, they will be able to break the Nus and they will be able to get the Nus under their control. Ultimately it's about conquering desires, right? And Ramadan, which is coming up inshaAllah in about a month and ten days, it will be the month in which we can conquer our desires if we put in the effort because all the desires will be, will be, that essentially will be trying to tame them. The next thing Nus likes to do is it likes to talk a lot about other people. Irrelevant conversation, but usually bad conversation, right? And so it's a trick of the Nus when you're about to ask, how is this person doing with, really with the intention of you want to mention something negative about them or something that could lead to something negative about them. And all of us, we know ourselves, some of us are Nus, not every single thing in here will apply to everybody at the same level. That's the other thing to know. Some of us like sleeping more than others. It's like there's people who aren't Muslim or anything and they're very disciplined. There's no sleep, like there's no laziness when it comes to it, but they're using their time for dunya, not for deed. And that's not something that, I mean, you know, it's better than to waste it, but it's still not something that's as virtuous as using it for me. The others of us, we might not be that into this whole selfie Nusse culture. It might not be our thing. Others of us, we might not, everybody's in their own boat. So some of us might inclined towards gossip and backfiting and talking bad about others and just talking about other people. Like it's just like, it's just like wasted conversation, wasted words. But this is another thing to be able to look out for for the Nus. Another aspect of the Nus is that it likes to show off. So there's one thing to draw attention and there's another thing to show off. Drawing attention has its subtleties, but then showing off, they're just very outwardly doing so. And we live in a very showoff mode. You have somebody who has a perfectly normal car and then they take the silencer out of their car just so they can be super loud and bother everybody else who's trying to live a peaceful life just so they can show off how much power and horsepower and torque, et cetera, that their car has. What's the point of that? Why does someone, if someone else, if you can hear music just for your own self, why does someone have to get that a woofer, a speaker system in their car that the whole neighborhood can hear the music? And just literally it feels like there's a mini, you know, something's happening as the person is driving by. It's just show off culture. It doesn't make sense, but this is why the culture we live in, we have to be really careful because it's all about the nuts. The shirk of this culture is there's no idols that are being worshiped that are statue idols. The shirk of the culture we live in in the West is they worship their own selves. Everybody worships themselves. Or worships people who are very good at worshiping themselves that they look up to those people, like celebrities and so on. But it's a very nuts me, me, me showing off, flexing. Even the terminology is all about that our own self. This is antithetical to the Muslim tradition completely. And we have to be very careful that as Muslims, sometimes we might only even hang out with other Muslims, but we think in the same way as everybody else. And that's because it's a very specific agenda that exists in a culture. Always keep that in mind. If you don't philosophize, someone else philosophizes for you. It's as simple as that. If you and I do not have an ideology for us, our ideology is Islam, and then specifically we want to try to get to the more spiritual side of Islam known as the science of Exxon. If we don't follow that ideology, someone else's ideology and philosophy will take over our life. In this case, what is someone else? Post-modern thought, secularism, critical theory, that all of these problematic, strange ideologies that have emerged from atheistic traditions start to take over the humankind and the capitalistic thought. All these thoughts that are all about money, the self, and our desires, and it's all about me. Allah is nowhere to be found, let alone caring for other people. And again, it is a very, very dangerous aspect of the study. So we have to be aware of it, and we have to work on it. And it's why it's so important to revisit the most important thing to recite the Qur'an, understand with the translation as well, and with a little bit of reflection. Because when we do that, we see the eternal speech of Allah. We read it, we recite it, it hits us, and then we're called back to the truth. That is the dose your spirit needs. That's the dose your spirit needs. And then you accompany that because most of us, we don't have the right kind of requisite knowledge in Arabic and Tafsir access to fully understand the Qur'an in detail. So we read the books of the scholars because they're all essentially commentaries on the Qur'an and the Prophet's lesson. And that's going to help us get a framework and bring us to, okay, this is actually what matters in society. This is actually what matters. And we have to be aware of that. And again, there's various faults that any really, really fault of the two other ones I just want to mention is that the nafs really inclined towards anger. So appetite is one big one and then there's anger. Anger means that in patients like getting angry at a situation or getting angry at a person usually. And then at the worst level, it's getting angry with Allah. But getting angry at a situation is okay. Like we're just not, why is this not going fast? What can I do? What's going on? Why is there so much traffic? What's going on? This is me on the 880 unfortunately. I'm just like, and then I have to be like, no, no, no, no, separate, separate. Because the 880, I don't know what, I don't know where everyone's going. It always has a lot of traffic. Okay, but then there's angry, angry, anger at people. And it's difficult to not get angry at people. It's hard, especially when someone does it. You didn't even do anything wrong and someone does something and just like starts yelling at you. It's really difficult to control this. I mean, I get just yesterday I was walking and there was a, I think he was, it might have been a Muslim. I think he was drunk or something. Some guy comes up to me as I'm walking and I was wearing a thong so it's like very clearly I was on me. He just makes it so he's saying salam and then just out of nowhere he's yelling at me at the top of his lungs and it's just like saying all these curse words but then is like saying salam and is also talking about God and I'm just like, what are you doing? And then, you know, threatening me. Like I'm gonna do this, you're gonna have to do this, you're gonna have to do this, and I was like, well, I live in Oakland so I, you know, I'm gonna love that. And then I went. Very, like I had this, I said a few things and I probably shouldn't have said all those things and it's very difficult though in the moment to control the tongue. I was thinking afterwards, I was like, under what's the wisdom of this rank of person just out of nowhere, completely just disrupting me and like starting to, you know, falsely empty threats but kind of out of nowhere. And those are random tests a lot of throws in our life pop quizzes to test us. Okay, are we gonna respond? Are we gonna be patient? I mean, we just back up and don't say, no, we have to be firm with people who are doing things that are problematic, especially threatening. But we don't stoop to the level of like cursing at someone and, you know, throwing out threats as well at somebody if they're actually, you know, harmless. When it comes to protecting your family though, then, you know, all that's are off, you would have to permit, you know, be of permission to do whatever it takes to protect our own, you know, our family and even our own selves in this physical danger. It's not a subtle, it can come at anybody. It can come someone in our household does something wrong. The majority of reasons why marriages collapse is if it's not a financial issue, it's an issue of anger. Someone has a temper and the temper is just not able to be controlled. And that just over, sometimes silly things and sometimes real things just can't control the anger. The goal in marriage is to harden the other person for the majority of things. Serious, serious topics we bring up in a gentle way is possible. And not, not like constant yelling matches inside the house and constant fighting. This will mess up the home environment, it will mess up the children, it will create trauma for the children and all sorts of other things. Again, all because of what? The nuffs. The nuffs is the root for all of these issues, all of these issues. So, now once the inner world of the human being becomes balanced and it starts to happen at a kind of you and I will see society begin to attain a state of balance again. Harmony. Because inner harmony results in outer harmony. And ideally the more and more someone is calling these desires and there's their anger and their appetites, the fewer and fewer of these desires that will start to manifest in society. But because we have a society that worships and that's forgotten about Allah we are in the state that we are in for the most part. Where there's a very, very kind of subverted reality. And we don't really have a framework for how to change it until we start to, you know, start to yard our tradition again. So, those are a couple of, what last one I mentioned, is the nuffs of desires, fame and prestige, followers. Loves that. This is why every single social media platform really wants to let you know how many followers you have. It's like a how many likes and how many views and it's very addicting. Because we might think we're doing something for the sake of either we don't really have a significant intention, maybe our intention is to do it for Allah but then, next thing you know our intention changes. We just want to do it for the sake of how many prestige can I gain, how many likes can I gain, how many followers. And when someone gains enough prestige, now they begin to use their influence sometimes for bad reasons. This happens. Again, this can happen religiously or out of the religious context. But the nuffs is very subtle when it comes to this. Very, very, very subtle. So, those are those are some of the dangers. It's just kind of a description to help us understand what is our nuffs. Basically all the problems, it's actually you can really summarize it. J-Thon whispers. He just gives suggestions. He doesn't actually do it. You and I, though the nuffs does it, it actually does it right? It actually does the bad. So, then let's now let's get into the framework for the cure. So, in this section today, we're not going to cover everything needed to tame the nuffs because it's another probably another two or so classes in cure. It's pretty comprehensive, which is very beneficial and hopefully it'll be as you lead on into Ramadan, which will be great so we can apply it in the month of Ramadan and ideally sometime before then as well. But there's three core aspects to curing the nuffs. It's about balancing a burden of worship. You give it a lot of worship to do. You burden the nuffs with worship and taking away its desires. That's really the balance. And it has to be done very subtly. Sometimes the stick and you sometimes you let it have something, sometimes you take it away, sometimes you let it have something, but you keep adding worship until the nuffs finally starts to submit. Until the nuffs finally starts to submit. So that's like the very, very high level of cure. The nuffs doesn't like Ibadah. I think we all probably know that. At some point in our life it was or maybe is very difficult to do through the basics. We can do so many other things, but like prayer or even wudu, usually it's wudu wudu and then prayer is just like this huge deal. But we could like solve a complex calculus problem or a very complex biochemistry problem or I mean there's some very intelligent Muslims out there. But when it comes to just doing like a very basic act of wudu and then praying it's this huge deal. We're just like I don't want to do it. I don't know why. And we've either been there ourselves or we might know others. It's just like I don't know. I just can't do it. It's so hard for me. It's because the nuffs hates it. The nuffs doesn't like it. It'll wake up early to stand in line for deals on Black Friday. It'll wake up early to watch World Cup games that are at odd hours in the morning and in the night. It'll do all sorts of things. But it won't wake up for wudu. It's very strange. And that's why the worship becomes so important. If worship is done sincerely for Allah, the nuffs doesn't like it in the beginning. But eventually it can be tamed. The second thing the nuffs doesn't like, it hates hunger. Hates it. Doesn't like hunger. It can't stand it, which is why there's a term in our society, right, that someone's hanged. It's like an anger that comes when someone is hungry. And because people it's like, oh no, no, no, don't mess with that person. They haven't eaten yet, or they haven't drank their coffee yet. It's like, that's just all pure nuffs. That's what at the station of a child it's okay for the child to be like that. If you have a baby or a toddler if they don't get their food it's just it's not a good situation. And they will just vocalize it because there's no they don't have legal responsibility to control their emotions or control their desires. They're like, I want food so if I'm not getting I'm gonna cry. But the adults we can't do that. But we do it sometimes. But we're hungry, we're just like, don't talk to me it's the last two hours before the start. No, no, don't talk to me I'm not gonna, and we just like, we get upset or we lose, we start snapping at people. This is because it doesn't hate hunger. It doesn't hate hunger. And why fasting is a very, very effective cure to these appetites. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. And the third thing that not hates it hates obscurity. It loves to be well known and loves attention and it hates obscurity. It doesn't want to be hidden. Obscurity means to just be hidden, to just be like kind of like, no, not drawing attention to yourself. Just kind of doing your thing existing, just one of the pack one of the, one of the, everybody you know your son, just another person, right? It doesn't like that. It's like, no, I gotta make a name for myself. I gotta do something significant. And it's like don't make a name for yourself with Allah. Allah is aware of everything we are doing that's what we should be making a name for ourselves with. But with, with human beings it's, I mean it doesn't really matter at the end of the day that should not be, it should be 0% of our intention in anything. It's to make a name for ourselves. But again the society we live in, it's all about that. It's all about that. So the not hates obscurity. So now the three steps in order to tame it then. Our first is to deprivation of appetites. Really deprivan of its appetites. The two appetites we'll get into at some point are food and sensual desire. Those are the two core appetites of the nuts. And so to not let it get into that. If we are unable to, it starts with the stomach and controlling our controlling our food intake controlling our food intake. Okay. And that means not just controlling it in Ramadan during the period of fasting. We're talking about out our days in Ramadan and outside Ramadan. Keeping the stomach light is the fastest way to achieve a state of spiritual enlightenment. Very fast. We don't give enough weight to the Hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam where he said that the believer just needs enough food to keep their back straight. And if that, they can't do that, then one-third food one-third water and one-third room for air or that's the room in the stomach. But not this full constantly being full. It's not it's not really a thing. It's never really been a thing in our tradition to just always be eating and always be just full. And because when we'll talk about we'll get into like the 10 benefits of maintaining a state of lightness in the stomach. But that really is a key one. That's a key one. And I see a few questions coming in online. We'll get to questions shortly. So deprivation of advocates. And then the second one sexual advocates. So food is linked to the sexual advocates. The more someone feeds the nuffs through food through all sorts of food like today I'm going to have this and then I'm going to try this restaurant and then I'm going to have this exquisite and then just chocolate and then cake and then this and we're just like always thinking about ice cream flavor came out and I have to get this and it's constant food. A little bit of nice stuff. Fine. If we company that would shock her. But constantly thinking about it, that's just where the nuffs goes. It doesn't have time to think about Allah. It's always thinking about these lower things. And just to add and clarify. This is not about halal anymore. We're talking about the path of trying to get nearer and nearer to Allah. So no one we should not think that it's haram to like all eat a lot. It's not haram as long as we're not hurting ourselves and some is halal food. It's spiritually like it's against the sunnah and it's against the if it's against the sunnah it's against the way of trying to draw near to Allah. That's that's what it is. But it's not haram. It's important to keep that in mind. So we should eat and we should eat healthy and we should eat enough to keep ourselves going. But food should not be the center of our days and the center of our life. There will come a point in someone's spiritual path where that approach to do it could block them. And Allah knows best. And this is also not in the other side. If there's anybody who's watching maybe you know younger. It doesn't like to eat the food their parents tell them. This is also not an excuse to not eat food. Especially if our parents telling us to eat our dinner and whatnot. It's mainly that we control our appetites. In the second one you mentioned sexual appetite. So this is also very difficult in the society we live in. Because there's haram images everywhere everywhere everywhere. Even like the adhan apps if you don't buy the pro version. The ads that come up. They're not even like permissible. You don't guarantee there's just some random you know ad engine from Google just generating ads and putting them out there. And you have to lower your gaze even from the app. They're everywhere. And so we have the sexual desire is constantly being stirred constantly being stirred for the people. And that desire has to be tamed. Because it's not these are what are called carnal appetites. These are the appetites of animals. The human being has these as desires. The desire for sex is there for procreation and to make sure existence continues. And it's a permissible desire if channeled through marriage. Completely permissible. Completely permissible and recommend it. If someone would get good deeds for that. But outside of marriage, promiscuity constantly thinking about the opposite gender or now even the same gender for some that constantly thinking about these things and then acting on them. That is one of the fastest ways to ruin the heart. And this will come. We'll talk about this in a second. He has a section he's going to get into about the eye. We'll talk about this more in the eye but this is where haram images inappropriately dressed that images and so on pornography. These are major problems that exist in society we live in. And this has to be removed from the lives of society and from the lives of the Muslims. Especially if we want to make a true true spiritual progress because otherwise the desires will run rampant. Will run rampant. So those are those are the appetites. And then so the second one is make the nafs do a lot of ibadah. That's really very, it's pretty basic there. Carry the burden of worship. Never give in. As soon as you get the idea to do worship never give in to the nafs when it's time to do something else. It just do, just do it. That's of course the far the worship but this is the extra stuff as well. If soon as we give in especially with our phones it's like we're going to waste our time. I just earlier I was thinking I was doing something and then I had for free time and I was like maybe I should do something good like beneficial and learn something read some Quran something and then it's like no no no I'm going to have to check this email. And then I just 10 minutes later passed by I completely forgot the time pass I had to do something else. I didn't even get to properly entertain the thought because when the inclination came I should have acted out but I didn't and then the nafs takes over and then it's like what are we going to do? That 10, 15 minutes spent scrolling through a feed reading the New York Times or Yahoo News or whatever it is we're doing it will have zero benefit for us at the end of the day in the grand scheme of things but spending 5 or 10 of those minutes reciting Quran that has a major impact could actually do some big stuff for us spiritually. A little bit goes a long way in a time where the vast majority of us we are struggling with doing thicker. A little bit of extra goes a long way. And it's very accessible one of the benefits of under love technology is everything is literally in the palm of our hand it's all there an app to read the Quran an app to learn something an app to open up YouTube and listen to lectures I mean everything is there but with it there's also 17 times more haram things or what time wastes and this is where the nafs if it's tamed it can actually use the device and the technology and so on for good but it has to be tamed and so maybe I carry the burden of worship this is why in Ramadan it's so important to just have a lot of worship in the nafs you want to fast we want to make sure we fast and then the nafs is going to say I'm tired I don't want to go to Tarawee and then you have to force it and if there's no urgent reason to not do 20 make the nafs do 20 if there's no urgent reason to have to go to sleep to wake up early for work or something like that but especially on weekends the nafs will find every excuse if thar party is big excuse in Ramadan not recommended for the spiritual traveler to stay at an ifthar party longer than the time it takes to finish the ifthar and come for Isha if someone regularly comes for Isha in Tarawee but socializing is preventing them that's not even very subtle trance of the nafs it just wants to hang out and talk but in Ramadan that's not the time for worship it's time for Ibadah again not haram closer and closer so the nafs must be given these big loads just like boom boom boom and it will submit sometimes it'll just get fine it'll actually enjoy it and other times it'll fight with us no I can't do it then you have to incentivize this is where the incentives come in if you do this I'll get you a donor I'm serious if you do this if you stay up later for this I'll buy you a nice coffee I'll do that but if you wake up early to pray the Hajj you can get a moqabate from Luba whatever subtleties you have to do moqabate at Luba for $7 so don't do it too much but every now and then if you need to incentivize enough find ways to do it but not all the time you have to find ways and so sometimes it's difficult for example reading sort of Kath on Fridays to get the habit of reading sort of Kath on Fridays it's like 110 verses takes maybe 20 to 30 minutes it takes some time sometimes the nafs are like no I don't want to do it I'm not going to find the time if you can read half of it we'll do this if you read the other half I'll give you this these tricks or these it's like an animal and you give it a little treat to reward the animal and that's really what the nafs is the burden of worship has to be given to it must be forced upon the nafs the third is really deeply appealing to Allah from the bottom of our heart when these desires are uncontrollable because this happens to everybody so why the prophets of Allah to make the da'a the drowning person imagine God forbid we're in a tragic circumstance so it's something like that's about to happen that from how deep down from inside of us the da'a would come out it would be very very powerful really come out from deep down inside of us and that is the da'a we're supposed to make when it comes to taming our nafs that at some point that ya Allah can't do this myself I'm unable to and then my nafs is getting the better of me my desires are getting the better of me this sin is getting the better of me whatever I'm doing is getting the better of me I need your help, please help me and trying to regularly do that have moments, sometimes we'll have moments when we are brought to our knees before Allah we have to capitalize on those moments we can't just ignore it in those moments we must use that time of brokenness to return to Allah so in the fastest ways that Allah according to the scholars is to approach him in a state of deep deep humility and brokenness a state of being a a needy, needy, needy servant that's the state and that is ultimately these three deprivation of appetites carrying the making the nafs carry the burden of worship and appealing to Allah from the bottom of our heart inshallah that's the comprehensive kind of quick summary and quick cure and then he's going to get into a lot more detail a lot more detail and then ultimately get into how exactly we go before we get to the next section this framework if we apply this what's going to happen is the desires they'll suddenly they'll start to kind of become less powerful they'll become less powerful so these cheap desires starts with food then the sexual appetite the next one is money and kind of riches and constantly desiring you know it's totally it's a good thing to succeed in the world if it helps us in our religious but if it distracts us from Allah then we should just take what we need right but the nafs especially living in Silicon Valley and it's very easy to get pulled into this desire for money that's what everybody wants to do money money money money right and so that's the third one the fourth one is as we mentioned fame and then there's this one which is power and so there's different scholars who talk about different types of desires but these ones not all of them come out when we are in a certain age so maybe in our late teens the desire the sexual desire comes out more for most people the desire for power at that point like maybe you can be like class president or something and you know exercise the desire for power but most people aren't in that state where they're not like oh my goodness I need to be in control right that desire starts to come out as someone gets older established a little bit now they want power they've already gotten power and that's why you see that people in their 60s and 70s and they can't let go of being president or whatever the power took over the desire tasted sweet it was nice being in control everyone's listening to you everyone's saluting you but that was just a desire at the end of the day so these desires if we do the comprehensive cure that we just talked about it will kind of make all of these desires weaker such that when they do come out they're not as strong as they would have been when we were they're not as strong as they would have been had we not done these things had we not made a appeal to Allah a lot and done a lot of evada and tamed ourselves through fasting and keeping our stomach light because it's kind of like a medicine that's just doing the work for you it's keeping you healthy so if someone stays healthy and they're constantly working out does it mean that they can never get you know high cholesterol or liver disease or something it doesn't mean they can never get it but the likelihood of them getting it is lower and if they get it it's not going to be nearly as have nearly as negative of an effect as the person who maybe lived a life of no exercise constantly eating and drinking soda and you know all the things that would cause these issues right so when it does come time God forbid for a disease to come out it comes out strong that's why we have to do this work when we're young young what I mean by that is because as we get older more and more desires start to come out if they haven't been tamed and it's very very strange because you'd think really as we get older we should have fewer desires we should have a desire to get closer to Allah we should have a desire to pray more and for many of our elders and grandparents this is the case they spend a lot of time worshiping Allah thinking about Allah and so on but you think about a good percentage of society and as they get older the whole goal is I have to make a name for myself I have to be in a position of power you won't see the desire for food rather these other people calling attention and becoming very very well established in a certain way and so on and that again is a subtlety and the trick of it so we have to tame all the desires early on in order to make it easier as we get older and older and perhaps it's one of the wisdoms of why one of those who are under the shade of Allah is the person who is when they were young they worshiped Allah when they were young they worshiped Allah worshiped Allah so this is basically kind of a general high level cure and remedy and then he's going to do next and we'll get into this next week inshallah he's going to say the main cure for all of this is true taqwa of Allah and he's going to describe 12 different aspects of taqwa what it is in wisdoms of taqwa that are described by Allah in Quran and he's going to comment a bit on it and then we'll get into basically the ways to control the inroads to the nuffs the main inroads to the nuffs are the eyes the ears, the tongue the thoughts and the stomach those are the inroads and you could say the private part those are the inroads for the nuffs and now that that's going to be probably partly next week and partly the week after inshallah basically then you'll get into the full cure step by step by step and that is medicine and knowledge that will help us every single day of our life every day of our life every day, there's some knowledge to learn that is really important but it'll help us when we do it for example we might learn the thick of going to Hajj or Umrah, very good knowledge to learn we'll go to Hajj hopefully at least one time in our life maybe a second time maybe we'll go to Umrah but we'd bless to go to Umrah a few times in our life inshallah but this we do this day in and day out we're with our nuffs day in and day out because it is us it's part of us day in and day out we are living this life where we have thoughts and we have desires and we have advocates and that's why it's so important to learn this and this is why ideally we'll close on this inshallah we'll open up for questions in the muslim world traditionally this science was taught as young ages and now muslims we don't really learn it anymore even in your average Sunday school or Islamic school maybe it's taught in some places maybe it's not though because it's kind of just expected that someone's told this is haram don't do it don't talk to the opposite gender don't do it we're not told why we're not told what desire is it that makes us want to do that that is at the end of the day what will calm us down what will calm the desire down because outward control comes when the inward control is already there we have to control it outwardly as well but when it becomes easier to control ourselves outwardly when inwardly we've understood the way to do it what the medicine is and how to apply it so inshallah with that we'll go ahead and get to questions and I know there was a question just online about timing of the class it's going to be essentially 7.30pm specific time on Wednesdays specific time which is a California time on Wednesdays inshallah so we pray Isha right around 7.15pm and then we'll start right after sometimes we might do 5-10 minutes behind schedule okay so any questions question or nothing okay online so how do we tame ourselves when we are like getting angry because of hunger how do we tame that the mood can be hard so it's not that you have to tame the mood it's you have to tame the impact of that mood on other people so if you're just like angry and it's just you and you're just like oh man I'm so hungry you're not feeling the greatest the headache is kicking in you have it under coffee you have to wait because you can't eat right now but the impact is not being felt you're just struggling as long as you're struggling you're fine it's when the impact is felt on someone else the ability is there so like if someone walks into the room and they say something and then we flip out on them that would be something we would want to we would need to avoid but it's not that you have to control the feeling itself the feeling itself is though controllable by changing the desire for food into desire for thicker and this is possible there are times where we might even feel in Ramadan where we start to feel a lightness to the day and then it becomes easier to do with the curd it becomes easier to recite Quran it becomes easier to do salawak so you would want to add to your routine at least 100 salawak every day minimum of what some should be doing daily we should aspire to do that and that salawak has a cooling effect it calms things down anger has a kind of warming effect it's from fire it makes you rise salawak cools down it's probably one of the best things to do to help so anytime you are feeling bad you would want to do salawak but at least try to do 100 to keep things going and how to tell people who get angry easily to get closer to Allah or should I just pray for them so you should always pray for someone who does have any struggle that they're going through especially if they're close to you but at the same time you want to help someone understand this side of the religion sometimes people just don't know that good character and it might sound basic to some of us but that good character is part of the theme they just don't know that so they might be praying and doing these other things but then just getting angry all the time and they've never been taught that behaving in a nice way towards people and controlling our anger is part of the religion those who restrain their anger they pardon others barely Allah loves the people of Exxon He loves them but we might not really read those things we might think our religion is only about praying 5 times a day and fasting Ramadan and looking a certain way outwardly and so on but really the difficult stuff is supposed to help us team so you want to eventually try to expose them to literature to scholars who talk about these types of things you might be let's say on a drive with somebody who has a situation you just put on a very short 10-20 minute talk about this subject from a spiritual lens and maybe you don't hear it towards them try to be subtle with it but you just find a way to help them here there are ways to do so but you have to accompany that with sincere prayer there's nothing that is sincere prayer in the middle of the night crying to Allah regularly and asking him for the depths of your heart that that can't solve that will solve everything any problem any person in our life who we are struggling with anyone in our life who isn't in that who isn't guiding who's slipping this guidance any time that happens we have to turn towards sincere prayer in the middle of the night and inshallah change will come very very quickly any questions here those of you who don't know are not mine yeah, question yes we should spend more time unfortunately finding more content and enjoyment in seeking more and taking praying at night should we spend more time to increase the amount that we also can't should we also spend time to enjoy that I hear what you're saying so the question is when it comes to taming the nafs with the burdens of worship let's say someone enjoys learning seeking knowledge should they spend more time doing that because they feel like it increases their imam more and more time doing what you had mentioned so the best form of worship is seeking knowledge it comes to a narration that's better than a thousand rakahs of prayer and attending a thousand funerals attending funerals attending one gathering of knowledge is better than doing that a thousand times so knowledge is worship it's at the crux of worship so by worship we don't mean that someone just stands and prays over and over and over again it has to be a mix the mix of the kind of perfect kind of get to is a balance of seeking knowledge a balance of applying that knowledge through some level of ibadah so for example feeling brokenness before Allah that's something you might learn in a book actually applying it is the goal how do you apply it in the prayer usually you're going to apply the feeling of feeling brokenness in prayer you usually won't be like reading the text and then all of a sudden start applying everything in that text you need to have time to apply but that is worship knowledge is actually the it is literally after the far things that we do it is the highest form of worship it's very critical so to answer the question we should do things that we know increase our iman and at the same time we have to do a few things but especially if they're from the sunnah I'll give you one example here let's say it's Ramadan and it's time for tarawih and tarawih is 20 rakah in some masjid it can be an hour two hours long it can be long but let's say we're like well I feel better when I read tafsir or like listen to Quran at home or read a few texts about the Quran or something like that a little bit and then do that now that would be a subtle trick of the nafs the reason is because tarawih is a sunnah mo akkaday emphasize sunnah so to leave it to do something which is not an emphasize sunnah it's actually not as beneficial but the nafs may make it think it's beneficial but let's say that someone is like well I'm not going to go to tarawih anyways and I just don't want to do it so either I could like watch a movie or I could listen to a talk well no they should listen to the talk 200% even if they're not going to write tarawih so it just depends on the stage that somebody is at what it is that they are doing and the same would apply like if someone is about to go do something like explicitly haram and then they could just sit there and just like kind of waste time watching a bunch of movies it's much better for them to just watch a bunch of movies than it is for them to do something explicitly haram like go clubbing or go to a party or something it would be much worse to do that so all of this goes back to I know that wasn't the exact part of your question but knowledge is worship knowledge is amongst the highest forms of thinker amongst the highest forms of remembering Allah because it is the first command that Allah gave is iqra and it's knowledge to recite, to read and then he says that Allah will teach you that which you did not know so teaching and knowledge are key in our religion Allah says that Allah taught Adam the names of all things which is the secrets, the knowledge that commentators say and many other meanings for that that Allah knows best Allah was teaching Adam, it's one of the first things that Allah did is again knowledge so all that to say that it is part of ibadah it's at the crux of ibadah and you'll see the scholars they would spend usually more time learning and studying than they would praying a lot like doing a lot but they would make sure to have their time for night worship they would make sure to have their time but they are not necessarily doing like it over and over and over again if they could spend that time understanding an aspect of knowledge does that make sense? okay so another question is someone is asking is this uploaded yeah so this is uploaded on youtube yeah for anyone who is it's on youtube at MCC east bay youtube I think it can be followed along on youtube as well live so that's where the recordings are posted okay so how do we control our anger when someone is triggering us like in the moment what should one do so one of the first things that we do is all of the stuff that happens in the moment it's all supposed to have been trained before the moment that's how spirituality works it's in the moment the first reaction will only happen correctly if we've done the work in order to when it's a game time the athlete, the Olympic athlete or the person who's in any sort of sport especially sports which last like a few minutes they'll spend all this time training so that in the moment they can make the jump or in the moment whatever it is that they can do they can land the flip it's all the training for years sometimes decades so they can do it in the moment so all that to say before your anger doesn't start in the moment it starts well beyond before that and that is by making sure we are following the basic rules of our religion praying five times a day especially fudgering a lot of time is key to controlling the anger for that day because it settles the heart calms the heart down, keeps the heart in state of tranquility then from there making sure you have a portion of recitation put on and a portion of the son of the wise of the prophets of us of them cannot emphasize that enough that is the life transforming set of dohas all of us should be doing ideally daily ideally daily and if not then at least when we are able to make time but daily is when we want to get to the basics about seven, ten minutes there's different compilations of it the one that is recommended and I would recommend is the weird of the teeth WIRD latif it's a compilation of the dohas one of the dohas that someone would make in the morning in the evening that help us with these various difficulties that day so if you read those dohas one of the dohas in there is Allahumma ni'a would become inshahni nafsih inshahni kulli tabatin that oh Allah I ask for you I seek refuge in the evil of my dohas and from the evil of everything you create so now that's going to help you that day if the evil of the nafs comes out in a situation of anger if you have ever read that doha you will feel more calm inshallah you will be able to control it so it begins beforehand the sunnah dohas are next after the fartheworship being in a concentrated vigor will help and then being in a state of voodoo will also help and then finally learn the reward for controlling the tongue there's a lot of reward for controlling anger you become amongst the people who Allah loves and it becomes the select people of Allah the people of spiritual excellence a very high station what is one of the categories of this station those who restrain their anger and they forgive others and so if we are seeing Allah in things in our life we see this is coming from Allah and we want to please Allah that it becomes easier to control and then finally in the moment we should ideally say al-wudil nafsih on energy and if we are in a position where we are standing and we can sit we should do that and then if we are sitting and we can lie down we should do that but if you're like you know if you're angry don't just lie down at the wheels and then obviously this has to be contextualized yes yeah good question the question is advice for remaining consistent with our other card you know this is a big one we're all going to go through ups and downs where there will be more consistency than less what we have to do is you have to get to some level that you for your own self you make it far that like if you and I ever miss a prayer we would be filled ideally we would feel bad and we would make up the prayer right we'd make up the prayer but we'll get to a point where we just stop missing the prayer in and of itself inshallah we're just a lot of this inshallah tawweek to get to it the same thing then applies with these because the Prophet s.a.w. did them every single day we're aspiring to be like him so we want to do them every day you make them up that day ideally so you just say okay I didn't do it in the morning I really after fudger or sometime when we wake up because they don't have to pray at that time they don't have to pray but if you wake up at like 9 o'clock you do it at 9 o'clock you find easy ways to insert into your day so the first step is that we find easy ways to insert into our day so driving somewhere you listen to it on YouTube and you just follow along you are walking somewhere and again you just put it on it's in your your headphones you are making coffee and you just like hey when I make coffee it takes me about 7 minutes to make coffee and another 3 minutes to make the toast and that's 10 minutes and that's exactly how much time it takes to do the work roughly and so you just play it at that time and because it's unlikely that we'll ever miss our coffee then it's unlikely that you'll ever miss the orathre so you insert as a person it has to be at a time of day and this is where the routine of life helps a lot like having something we do every day we go on a walk or we're driving somewhere we do the same thing in that routine it really helps the second is that get to a point where for roughly one month we said ideally 40 days we said it as a goal we're going to do it consistently once that happens that becomes a habit we know this through literature now as well as in our own spiritual tradition that there's a secret in 40 days that's doing something for 40 days Ramadan essentially is like 30 days very close to doing it every single day will help once it's at that 30 or 40 days you will feel really weird if you don't do it it'll just be like hold on it's like I did it for this much time you get a time I got it the first week I'm going to set it up the second week and the next thing you know once it's been 4 or 5 weeks that inshallah it will be a habit now it will just be part of your routine and now the goal is to attain presence in it and then eventually to do it to kind of add more to it and then the third thing is as we mentioned some reward you have to give yourself a little bit of like you did it good job now it's like I'm going to give you something whatever reward you can give to us to link it to that that dhikr so this is where they actually well I know somebody who would teach his children that if his children will wake up with him to pray fajr in the masjid and then pray tahajjud then they'll go and all get donuts right and not every day but like you know every now and then and it was a link reward so then they started associating tahajjud and fajr time with sweets and with sweetness and then they loved it so give it some reward every now and then you did it good job now so I'm going to give you this inshallah we do those three things and then lastly of course we beg Allah for consistency when you are making when you are saying that one of the intentions to make from the people who are on the straight path is the path of istiqama istiqama means steadfastness so we make that intention and our heart that oh Allah make me amongst the people who are on the path of istiqama steadfastness and inshallah we do that you know 15 to 17 times a day the path that you will be constantly asking for the stone so those inshallah should help you okay two more questions till what age is considered young and worshipping Allah a good question some of the scholars say that youth is until 40 so it's a good sign inshallah can you explain the relationship between dust and social events to humans so the nafs in social like socialization it's that the nafs likes attention the nafs likes talking about frivolous gossiping, backbiting it likes especially getting into into haram and it likes just getting into things that attract towards the dunya so if we are going to social events which that's the majority of discourse that's happening that's going to be bad for you, for your spiritual progress it's going to hurt you and make the nafs stronger it's going to hurt you spiritually it's going to make the nafs stronger so what are the likes of this like happy hours events where the whole goal is just dunya and the whole goal is desire and all these things these are not considered virtuous things but but let's say that it's about events that are social events like it's an event where you're going to see the muslims or you're going to go to a gathering of knowledge or a gathering of thicker or like a dinner with muslims that's fine your goal there with the nafs is don't make it about you don't make it about you that's the whole goal of the nafs it should be about other people ask how are you doing it don't be like well and try to be the center of attention and try to flex about oh I did this and I accomplished this and I did this and I succeeded here and I got promoted and this is in control questions any other questions okay online there's a question about images and like having images in your homes so if you can email me my emails in my bio email any questions let's keep the questions for the class kind of directly related to the class inshallah there's a difference of opinion on images and hanging images for the short and for having like stuffed animals and dolls it's permissible for children like for adults to have idolized type of things and action figures if it's not a good thing to do oh yeah do we get rid of the nafs completely do we get rid of the ego completely it's a good question no you don't get rid of the ego or the nafs completely you tame it until it advances so the nafs has levels the first is the level of the evil soul the evil self called the nafs and amara then there's the next level it graduates called the nafs the lawma the blaming soul the evil one is the one that commands to the basic appetites the desires all the stuff we've been talking about the self blaming soul is the one that begins to hold itself to account I shouldn't have done that I should have done that why did I do this and it starts to hold accountability because it kicks in we're in that stage for quite a long period of time until Allah hopefully gives us 12 feet and then you attain a stage called the nafs this nafs stops resisting it's a tranquil soul Allah says that that enter to your Lord's presence enter into your Lord's presence in a state of view and you are pleased with your Lord so this nafs stops resisting so you don't eliminate it you channel the desires the desires go from being channeled downwards towards the lower world and towards the hellfire towards being channeled upwards and the desires can be channeled upwards knowledge, thicker, all heavenly things and it's why in Ramadan when the hadith says that the doors of heaven are open in the months of Ramadan the gates of hell are closed one of the ways we can understand that is the doors of spiritual openings and desires spiritual desires are open and the doors of lowly things are closed so we won't be pulled down but rather we will be pulled up if we are oriented inshallah in the right direction and oriented towards the sunnah of the prophets the nafs is not to be we don't want to eliminate it you need some of these desires you need the desire to eat but in control and limitation we need these desires in order to exist however the ultimate desire is to desire Allah and to be kind of eventually lost in that spiritually lost you could say that's not a good translation spiritually annihilated in Allah essentially someone is just so focused on Allah that it's just like everything is about Allah and that would be the ultimate goal all these desires but it's not that your nafs will just be eliminated the nafs now kind of starts to assist you you could say because the nafs in the nafs will hopefully amend this stage inshallah so there's no other questions I think there's an answer online as well so we'll end with a du'a oh just one last thing this Friday night inshallah is the 27th of Rajab which is the lid of the Israway Miraj according to the dominant opinions this is the night in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was bestowed with the the wonderful blessing of getting to visit first from Mecca to Jerusalem and then from Jerusalem to heaven and to meet Allah directly the famous night of the Israway Miraj and it is a very very good thing to learn about the wisdoms of this night there's no specific act of worship that we like have to do anything on this night but it's very good to learn about the wisdoms of this night and to know that this is the night of relief he had been having a very difficult time very difficult year before this night came very difficult, he lost his beloved wife who had been with him for decades who had helped him as he was struggling to figure out what revelation was all about he lost his uncle Abu Balim who was essentially like the father to him who had protected him and taken him under his care and he had lost his and he had faced immense torment and ridicule from attempted ridicule from the people of Taif when they had thrown stones at him and rocks at him as he tried to deliver Dawah and many other difficulties happened this year and then on this night that lives of Israway Miraj he was given complete relief and it was Allah was saying I know you went through a lot now you're with me and I just took Allah just completely completely just got rid of all of the grief that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and then bestowed him with immense gifts immense gifts according to the scholars for him this was the best night of his life this was the best night of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam because he comes to be in the divine presence and it's when he received the prayer directly from Allah it's the one thing that was not revealed to any intermediary it was given directly from Allah the prayer the gift of the salam so anyhow on this night it is a night where ideally we should learn about what took place there's different people who are doing mcc and other masjids they're doing events to talk about the description of the night and then we should make it a night we'd make doha ideally for belief for difficulty for the Muslims the Muslims in Turkey and Syria who've gone through this very difficult earthquake and then for our own lives whatever difficulties we might be going through our fellow brothers and sisters in our communities just a night of doha for belief again this is not a specific thing that's legislated in the deen to the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and so that it would be good for us to seek belief for our problems and then inshallah the relief will come inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah inshallah Allow their lives to be in a much better state in the next Sambod, Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen. We ask you for comprehensive after well-being and for easy, easy to realize for all those Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen who are struggling with difficulty and who are homeless and who don't have food and who don't have water and who don't have warmth and who are struggling Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen. We ask that you assist them, Ya Allah and give us the ability to assist them in some way, shape, or form and give us the tawfiq to give them financially to make goah for them, Ya Allah. We ask that you not test us with these kinds of difficulties, Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen. We ask Ya Allah that you allow us to be from the Shafiq-e-Din and from the people of Shukr that we were grateful for the lives that you have given us and for all the blessings that you have given us and we can never thank you Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen for these blessings, Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen, Ya Allah. We attempt to thank you, but we cannot thank you, Ya Allah. We ask Ya Allah that you turn to us with your mercy, Ya Allah. We are unable to defeat our own infuse and our own nafs, Ya Allah. We are unable to defeat our ego. We are unable to defeat our desires and our appetizer. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts that you helped us conquer our nafs and conquer the insinuations of the nafs and conquer the desires of the nafs and conquer all of the haram that the nafs calls us to Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen that you allow us to become people of purity and become people of Safa and people of nearness and people of cleanliness and inward cleanliness and inward purity and outward cleanliness and outward purity, Ya Allah. We ask Ya Allah that in this month of Rajab that you can immense relief to our fellow Muslims, Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen and to all of those who are struggling in the world and amongst all the Muslims, Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen in any part of the world that had went through any oppression that you grant them immense relief and that you grant us relief from our difficulties, from any health challenges or anxieties or depressions or stress or worries or other issues that any of us might be going through that you grant us complete afya and well-being, Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen and that the secrets that you gave the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and later the Islam and Rajab that you bestowed them upon this whole woman that you give us access to the Anwad and then if a happen this week briefs is that we will be present on this night Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen, Ya Allah we ask Ya Allah from the bottom of our hearts Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen, Ya Allah we ask that you turn towards us and that you allow us to become nearer to Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen and allow us to direct our entire being inwardly and outwardly to you Ya Allah make us consistent and our thicker and in our odad and in our quran and in our prayer and in every single thing that we do give us presence Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen, Ya Allah presence by your ability not by our ability Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen give us strength through your strength Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen because we are weak give us knowledge through your knowledge because we don't know anything give us wisdom through your wisdom because we have inability give us enrichment through your enrichment Ya Mokni because we are unable to Ya Razak provide from us Ya Allah Ya Allah provide for us Ya Allah through your provision not through our provision because we have nothing Ya Allah we are incapable before you we are broken before you we have nothing Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen you are our Lord and you are our Rabb and you are our Creator we turn to you for everything and we ask that you bestow upon us great spiritual gifts and great nearness Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen can accomplish this in complete mercy and complete forgiveness Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen but Barakah in this month Allahumma Barakah Birojib wa Shamban Mubalikna Ramadhan Allah us to the Habarakah and Rabid Rabin and Shamban and Allah us to reach Ramadhan Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen and Allah us to be completely directed towards you such that we are constantly on this Deen and that we die upon die Allahumma Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that you grant us Jonathan for those to grant our families and our friends and our loved ones and all of those amongst the Muslims the highest stations of paradise with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and that we enter with him hand in hand and it's the best of abodes and that we spend our eternal life with you Ya Rabbil Alayhi Meen and with him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammad Alayhi wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Alayhi wa sallam wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammad Alayhi wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam